january 18th
Walcott Watch: Nothing definite yet. It seems Rupert is trying to spark a bidding war. Yesterday he said “We have now received a couple of offers and the indications are another may follow. These have not been accepted or rejected at this stage.”
No doubt Chelsea are one of the clubs who have bid along with ourselves.
At the end of the day though it doesn’t matter if Chelsea offer a squillion, billion and ten pounds if the player has decided he wants to play for Arsenal. I’d expect we’ll hear something today.
In other news Ashley Cole says Arsenal want second place in the league. The returning left-back said “Realistically, we are not [now] going to aim for the top spot, but if we can keep winning all our games then we can get second. A team like Arsenal has to be in the Champions League and there is a lot of expectation on the players.”
No harm in aiming as high as we can no matter how difficult it might be.
Arsene Wenger has praised young Swiss centre-half Johann Djourou. A couple of years ago the boss was determined to keep him from the spotlight and told reporters to forget the name he’d just mentioned. Now though it seems he is no longer he who cannot be named but he who has made his league debut and done well. New signing Emmanuel Adebayor reveals Sp*rs were interested in signing him before we made our move. He says he turned them down because they are ‘hapless cunts’.
Managing director Keith Edelman talks about the new stadium and what it will mean to the club.
“We will be much better off financially than we were at Highbury once we move to the new stadium. The new stadium is a positive contribution. Immediately we move to the new stadium we will be earning more money than we would at Highbury.”
And that’s the bottom line really. Years of history cast aside for money but in the modern game you either move on or get left behind and no matter how sentimental some of us get for Highbury the reality is the new stadium is vital if we want to compete in the long term against the big boys in the Premiership and Europe.
However, what separates fans from people like Edelman is evident when he says “Our gate income will probably be the highest gate income in the world because we’ve got 60,000 fans and we’ve got higher-priced tickets and more premium tickets than any other club in the UK.”
Nice to know that he appreciates how much it costs to go to games now and he loves all of you because you buy his higher-priced tickets and his premium tickets. Even if that was the case was there any need for it to be made public? I think we’re all proud of our new stadium and appreciate the work the board has done to get it up and running but comments like that are horribly boastful at the expense of the people who have to pay for these tickets. Anyway, his comments aren’t going to make him any less popular with Arsenal fans. I’m not sure that’s possible.
That’s about it then. Those of you fretting about Walcott – try not to worry too much. Although it does remind me of when we were after Charlie Nicholas and I said 4 decades of the rosary every night which made him sign. Whatever works for you.
